


Driving Lessons

by Sed



Category: Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-18 17:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1436041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sed/pseuds/Sed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam teaches programs how to drive in the user world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lesson One: Tron

**Author's Note:**

> This is/will be a short series, but since I don't know when they'll end, each chapter will be considered the "last" chapter, and the work will be listed as complete. When I'm finally done with it I'll make a note on the last chapter.

“Right foot. Use your right f—stop trying to switch between both feet, just use your right foot, damn it!”  
  
Moving at what Sam estimated to be between one and two miles per hour, the car rolled painstakingly toward a lone lamp post standing sentinel over the abandoned parking lot. Tron jerked the wheel to the left, then rolled it back to the right, before letting go entirely and pulling both feet from the brake and gas pedals. The car continued at roughly the same speed, in the same direction.  
  
“You can’t just let go—Jesus—Tron, there’s only _one thing_ in this parking lot and you’re heading right for it at a speed my gram could’ve outrun. Just hit the fucking brake!” Sam shouted. He really was making a sincere attempt not to scream at Tron while he wobbled around between the faded lines of defunct parking spaces, but it was so hard to keep calm. He’d never thought someone who could weave a light cycle around a pin would be so totally incapable of picking up a damn automatic. “Quorra can drive a lightrunner, why can’t you drive a car?”  
  
“It’s not an intuitive skill,” Tron said. “I can’t just plug it in.”  
  
“No shit. You’re still driving toward the lamp post. For fuck’s sake—here.” Sam grabbed the wheel and jerked it to the right, avoiding the extremely slow collision Tron had set them up for by refusing to listen to Sam’s instructions.  
  
Tron folded his arms over his chest like a scolded child and frowned at the steering column. “This is ridiculous.” They were still rolling forward.  
  
“What’s ridiculous,” Sam said, “is that you’re actually just making this hard for yourself. It’s not rocket science. You need to stop acting like it’s the car’s fault that you don’t know how to drive.”  
  
“I know how to drive!”  
  
“No, you obviously fucking don’t, Tron!” Sam readjusted his seatbelt violently to avoid taking his anger out on some other, more sensitive part of the car. What was the point of even wearing a seat belt, anyway? He could have opened the door and stepped out before they actually hit anything. He was just about to take it off when the car suddenly shot forward, pinning him back against the seat as they hurtled across several rows of parking spaces at a speed that felt like it could be measured in G-force. Sam threw his hands out in front of himself like he could somehow slow them down with the sheer power of his panic. When he looked to the side he found Tron, his face a mask of grim rage and determination, snarling at whatever invisible enemy he had in sight at the far end of the parking lot. “What the hell are you doing?!”  
  
“You want me to drive, I’ll drive!”  
  
“I meant responsibly! This isn’t responsible!” The tires protested in a low squeal as Tron spun the wheel and the back end of the car swung across the pavement. Sam took the opportunity, while his face was forcibly pressed against the window, to look in the mirror; as he suspected, there was a trail of smoke following the path of the tire marks. When he was finally able to peel himself from the glass, he looked over to find Tron’s grim frown had turned into something more feral, and he was hunched over the wheel with both hands locked in a white-knuckle grip on the leather. It reminded Sam of a villain in a cartoon car chase, only not funny in any way. He was going to die. Giving Tron a driving lesson. “Let go of the gas, take your foot off the—why do you have both feet on the gas pedal!”  
  
“For speed!”  
  
“Stop the car!”  
  
“I thought you wanted me to drive?” Tron shouted over the growl of the engine. “This is driving!”  
  
Sam looked at the rapidly approaching abandoned storefronts. He didn’t want to die in an empty Quiznos. He really didn’t.  
  
With everything happening at a speed far in excess of reasonable, Sam was sure they wouldn’t have time to slow down. But at the last possible second, just when he was about to reach for the parking brake to _make_ Tron stop the car, he heard the shrill whine of the brake pads engaging, and the car came to a labored stop wrapped in a cloud of smoke. They were about six feet from the sidewalk. Sam tried to take a deep breath, but found it difficult with his seatbelt locked against his chest. His heart was still fluttering against his ribcage, and his hands were shaking. Slowly, without a word to Tron, or any comments regarding what had just happened, he removed his seatbelt, opened the door, and got out of the car. He could feel Tron’s eyes on him while he walked around the front and stepped up next to the other door. It only took a moment for Tron to figure out that Sam was going to be driving them home. He got out of the car on his own without any objections, walking around to the other side via the back of the car.  
  
“No,” Sam said plainly. He leaned over and locked the passenger side door.  
  
Outside, Tron leaned over and glared through the window. “Let me in,” he said.  
  
Sam shook his head. “I’m out. We’re done. You’re walking home.”  
  
“I can’t do anything from the passenger seat!”  
  
“I don’t care!”  
  
An obvious master of strategy, Tron switched tactics. “I’m sorry, I got mad. I won’t do it again.” He even smiled.  
  
Sam wasn’t falling for that. It was how he’d gotten roped into teaching Tron to drive in the first place. Still, leaving a former program to walk home probably wasn’t the best way to end their first—and only—session. “You can ride in the back seat,” he said. “If you say anything, I’ll leave you on the side of the road.”  
  
“That’s fair.”  
  
He waited for Tron to settle into the back seat and put his seatbelt on before starting the car and the lecture Tron now had no way to escape. “You can’t just do whatever you want anymore, you know,” he said. “This isn’t the Grid. You’re not gonna whip up another light cycle and go zipping off like it’s no problem if we crash. You could’ve gotten us killed because you want to prove a point.” He was so angry his voice nearly cracked twice, and he went through all the motions of starting the car as aggressively as he could, just because. “I don’t give a shit what you do on your own time, but when you’re with me you—” Mid-lecture, Sam stomped on the gas to reverse, realizing too late that he had put the car in drive; they shot forward, up over the sidewalk, and through the glass doors of the abandoned Quiznos. He brought the car to a stop with just over half of its length sticking through the storefront. The door was demolished, and most of the frame was now lying inside the empty store. Bits of glass and broken metal were sprinkled across the hood like confetti.  
  
“Sam—”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“…Maybe we should go home.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Thanks for the driving lesson.”  
  
“No problem.”


	2. Lesson Two: Jarvis

He couldn’t understand his father’s fascination with digging up old programs and bringing them into the real world. Tron was one thing—Sam even bit his tongue when Clu was dredged up from the last memory dump they had done before emptying the old Grid. But there were limits. Jarvis. Jarvis was the limit.  
  
To make matters worse, everyone seemed to expect that Sam should take responsibility for him. Mostly it was guiding him through everyday things like making food and putting on clothes, which was something Sam never thought he’d have to teach anyone over two feet tall. It wasn’t so bad at first, he’d had to rescue Jarvis from a couple of turtleneck sweaters here and there, but for a simpler program he was fast enough with most things. It was _driving_. That was where Sam’s patience finally hit its limit.  
  
It wasn’t like Tron. At least Tron would get in the car.  
  
Jarvis circled it like a wary shark. Not a threatening one, like a great white or a bull shark; he was more like one of the little tiny sharks that would probably bolt if you disturbed the water around it. Sam had learned that when he tried to hand him the keys so he could just _sit_ in the driver’s seat. It took half an hour just to coax Jarvis back out of the house.  
  
“It’s not gonna hurt you.”  
  
“I’ve seen the footage!”  
  
Sam was beyond confused, and he didn’t bother hiding his frustration. “What the hell are you talking about? You mean accidents?” He wondered how Jarvis had even known to look for that sort of thing. “Where did you find that?”  
  
From behind the safety of a palm tree, Jarvis said, “Clu showed me.”  
  
What a shock. Sam could imagine Clu’s glee as he spared no gory detail, pulling up sick videos on some site that would be a parent’s worst nightmare. Giving them unrestricted internet access had been a terrible idea. “Accidents aren’t that common, you’ll be fine.”  
  
“There is a car accident every fourteen seconds, with a fatality on average every twelve minutes. Don’t lie to me, user.”  
  
So they were back to _user_ again. It had been months since Jarvis had referred to anyone who wasn’t originally a program as a user, and a little longer than that since he had used the term as an insult. It was almost weird to hear him say it again. Fortunately it jogged Sam’s memory and reminded him of a time he had found himself in a similar standoff with Jarvis over something _else_ he thought would harm him. “Remember that time you wanted to put your hand in the touch tank at the aquarium, but you were worried the starfish would hurt you?”  
  
“Vaguely.”  
  
That was a lie, Sam had never met anyone with a memory like his. It was a steel trap. “Okay, well, I told you nothing in there could hurt you. Did I lie to you then?”  
  
“You did not.”  
  
“Right. So why would I lie to you now?”  
  
For a few hopeful seconds, it seemed as though that might have done the trick. Jarvis edged out from behind the tree and shuffled forward a few feet. His eyes darted back and forth, between Sam and the car, like he expected it to stand up on the back wheels and come tearing across the lawn after him. Just before he came close enough for Sam to reach out and touch him, he panicked, and fled to the back yard.  
  
There wasn’t enough patience in the world to deal with the level of bullshit Sam had to endure on a daily basis living with programs.  
  
“Jarvis, you have thirty seconds to get your scrawny ass back out here and in the car, or I’ll come and get you and _make_ you get in that car. The clock starts now,” Sam yelled in the direction Jarvis had run. He was pretty sure if he went looking, he would find him in the greenhouse. For some reason Jarvis was under the impression that no one could see him through the transparent walls.  
  
“ _No!_ ” came the stubborn, one-word reply. Based on how muffled it sounded, he was exactly where Sam thought he would be.  
  
Sam shoved the car keys back in his pocket and marched around the side of the house. The fence gate was already open, but he threw it aside just to alleviate some of his frustration. It slammed into the fence, making a sound that echoed between the houses. Sam could see Jarvis’ silhouette jump and then dash for cover under one of the benches. It was like dealing with a twitchy five year old. “I can see you,” he said.  
  
“I don’t care, go away!”  
  
“I can’t believe this, you’re the one who asked me to teach you how to drive. I was just gonna let you watch me this time. You’re acting like there’s a live cougar in the back seat!”  
  
The horrified gasp from Jarvis told Sam he’d picked the wrong absurd scenario to use for his example. “ _Does that happen?_ ” Jarvis demanded. His panic was so powerful it cracked his voice and probably caught the attention of several dogs in the neighborhood. “I changed my mind, I don’t want to drive!”  
  
“Fine, but don’t ask me to take you to the store for gummy worms, or drive you to the bowling alley so you can stalk Clu and dad on Tuesday nights. I’m not wasting my time anymore.” He felt bad saying it, since that was pretty much the only time Jarvis left the house, but his irrational panic over every single thing was getting really old. “Ask Tron to take you.”  
  
“Tron isn’t allowed to have anyone in the car with him,” Jarvis said quietly. He sounded upset, and it only doubled Sam’s guilt. “I’ll just walk.”  
  
“Do you even know how far away the bowling alley is?”  
  
Jarvis was quiet, and Sam had a feeling he was actually trying to calculate the distance. He had probably clocked them the last time they went there. Or the last several times. “It’s about nine miles,” Sam said. “You can’t walk that.”  
  
“I can.”  
  
“You can, but it’ll take all night. By the time you get there dad and Clu will be on their way home. Why do you even go there, anyway? You know Clu just gets mad every time he spots you.” He assumed it started out as some holdover from a thousand cycles of servitude, but Jarvis had the free will to do whatever he wanted, and for some reason that meant shadowing the only person who actively tried to make him feel bad. Occasionally Sam caught Clu being nice to him, but it was always immediately followed by something terrible, just to make up for whatever kind act he’d been caught committing.  
  
There was a mumbled reply from inside the greenhouse, but Sam couldn’t hear it through the plastic walls. “What was that?” he asked, stepping up closer so he could actually hear what Jarvis was trying to say.  
  
“I said I’m trying to learn how to play.”  
  
“Why?” Sam had a feeling he already knew, but he asked anyway.  
  
“So I can go with them.”  
  
Well that was just Hallmark Channel sad. Sam put his arm up against the side of the greenhouse and sighed. “You know Clu isn’t gonna let that happen.”  
  
“Yes, but your father _will_. And if I show them that I can play too, Clu won’t be able to convince him otherwise.”  
  
That was surprisingly devious for Jarvis, and a sound plan, all things considered. “Well,” Sam said, “I meant it when I said I wasn’t driving you anymore. So you have two options: you can suck it up and get in the car with me, or you can abandon your dreams of bowling domination. Which will it be?”  
  
All was quiet in the greenhouse, until the shuffle of feet and the clang of garden tools falling over on themselves announced Jarvis’ exit. He poked his head through the door and looked around for Sam. “What happens if we have an accident?”  
  
Sam shrugged at him. He didn’t really have an answer for that. “I don’t think we have to worry about that, we’re just going around the block this time. You ready to get in the car?”  
  
“I think I am.”  
  
“Good,” Sam said. Before he could stop himself he added, “I mean what are the odds I’ll get into _another_ accident today?”  
  
Jarvis was gone before he could turn around to tell him it was just a joke.


End file.
